Question: how did you get into goth?

Apologies for the lack of activity on here! I've been rather busy on holiday, and trying to get everything on my to do list done (I need to update the one on here, as it's woefully out of date).

It just occurred to me today, partially as a result of a post I have scheduled and partially out of the blue, that I haven't actually said much about how I got into goth on this blog - I've certainly shown you how I dress, the crafts I make and the music I listen to, but very little of how I actually got started on the spooky path.

We often like to proclaim, as goths, how we've 'always been this way', and big up our weird childhood influences and whatnot, when in reality the conscious decision to start dressing in black and sway to the March Violets comes much later. However, innate nature and childhood influences do play a significant part, I suppose.

Growing up in Glasgow, probably the most diverse city I know, I've always been exposed to alternative fashion and life style. I watched goths (properly dressed up, nineties style) hang about in Glasgow Central Station holding onto my dad's hand as we passed through, I sat in the Italian café my family always used to go to - now closed - on Union Street and watched the teenagers queue up for the Cathouse, and I attended talks on manga at the Edinburgh book festival with a very elegant lady with long dark hair behind me (if she ever on the off chance reads this, I am so sorry you had to sit next to that Czech couple who sounded like they were making love in the middle row. They were bugging me too).

My dad was always of the opinion that goth was a transient phase, given that he 'never saw a middle aged goth', but I was fascinated by the otherworldliness of them, even if I didn't necessarily like the style. They lived in their own separate world, with different clubs and shops and fashions and friend groups. My taste for alternative clothing manifested in other ways when I was younger, with an Avril Lavigne phase (don't laugh) and many bizarre fashion experiments featuring (god bless my parents, enduring the tutus and trainers).

As for my actual descent into leather and lace? I've been a big fan of punk rock since I was about fourteen, and after a couple of years I got curious and started trying more of the original post punk. After discovering the original gothic rock I began reading goth blogs, and gradually my tastes began to show it. I sometimes wonder if my early 'exposures' at all influenced me, but I'm too busy enjoying my black and my bats to care. :P

So, to open this up to the floor (one of the things I love about blogging is the community that forms around it, and the in depth conversations that result), what inspired you to identify as a goth? Was it purely by chance, or had you only just realised that there was a name for what you liked?




Fee